e.68: Epic Tomatoes

I stumbled across Craig LeHoullier's book, Epic tomatoes, by accident one day when I was trolling the internet looking for episode ideas. I bought his book on a whim, and am I ever glad I did. Many years ago, Craig fell in love with growing tomatoes, and then, specifically, heirloom tomatoes, and he eventually put everything he learned about tomato history, and the art and science of growing beautiful tomatoes, down on paper. I roared through the book. And then, impressed with what I read, I asked Craig to come on the show to talk about his passion. And, it is a passion. Craig figures he has five thousand tomato varieties in his collection, and that he's personally grown out more than 2000 of them. This episode: part one of our conversation, which focuses on heirloom history, and practical considerations for starting tomatoes in the nursery and pruning them in the field. Part two, which includes a best-of varietal list for commercial growers, comes out next week.